The Poisonwood Bible By Barbara Kingsolver

Adah Price: an embodiment of the Congo. In Barbara Kingsolver’s novel, The Poisonwood Bible, Adah Price serves as an embodiment of the Congo before and after imperialism. By having Adah symbolize the Congo, Kingsolver emphasizes her message of the society’s lack of understanding and discrimination of different cultures and ideals: and idea still prevalent today with the rise of islamophobia across America. To begin, Adah’s initial purpose in the novel is to serve as an embodiment of the pre-imperialism Congo. Kingsolver quickly introduces this as even Adah herself remarks, “When you do not speak other people presume you to be deaf or feeble-minded” (Kingsolver 34). Thus in the first part of the novel it is apparent that others look down upon

This view is comparative to that of Adah, who is also perceived as less of a human, as even Adah admits, “After our complicated birth, physicians… sent my parents home over the icy roads on Christmas Eve with one-half set of perfect twins” (Kingsolver 34). Hence, Adah is the other half—the imperfect half of the twins—making her seemingly less of a human than her perfectly healthy twin. Resultantly, Adah feels more accepted in the Congo, where disabilities are common, reveling another connection between her and the Congolese and reiterating how she embodies the Congo itself. So, Kingsolver depicts Adah as

This becomes apparent when Adah notices, “The king of America wants a tall, thin man in the Congo dead… By this secret: the smiling bald man with the grandfather face has another face” (Kingsolver 297). Thus, Adah recognizes the irony behind Eisenhower ordering the assassination of the Congo’s President as Americans were largely responsible for the democratic election of the President in question. As a result, Adah comes to the decision that Eisenhower is more a king than a President, as he seeks to control the Congo without Congolese democracy interfering. This critical view of Eisenhower, and America by extension, mirrors the view of the Congolese, who appear just as weary and critical of the invasion of western culture in their country. Even Anatole, who has helped the Price family adheres to these views as Leah finds that, “But you believe in what they’re doing to the whites, even if you won’t do it yourself. You’re saying you’re a revolutionary like the Jeune Mou Pro” (Kingsolver 308). Thus, it is revealed that even those in the village like Anatole that have supported the Price family through their mission ultimately find America, and the imperialism associated with the nation, to be like a plague that they must cure themselves of. Since Adah shares these